


Firelight

by blythechild



Series: Gift Fics 2016 [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Being Lost, Boss/Employee Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Families of Choice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, First Kiss, Fluff, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Romantic Friendship, Sharing Body Heat, Snowed In, Storms, Team as Family, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: Prentiss couldn’t feel her arms or legs anymore, but she hadn’t kept herself and Reid alive all of these years just to have them die a stupid death in the Rocky Mountains together. This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story is suitable for teen readers and older.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a holiday gift fic for Amber Renee who gave the following prompt: _Reid/Prentiss, a cabin with a fireplace._ Thanks for playing, hon, and I hope you enjoy it!

Emily couldn’t feel her arms or legs anymore. They were there because she was still moving forward, her hands still clutching Reid, but there was a surreal disconnect between seeing them and having no sensory awareness of them. They kept stumbling, and more than once one or both of them fell ending up on their knees almost waist-high in snow. Rising again got harder each time and plowing a trail through the drifts was taking everything she had. And the wind was against them, right in their faces stealing their breath and plastering their hair to them in a stinging, icy mess. A gust blew relentlessly and she turned her face towards Reid’s chest so she could gulp down some air. His face was strained, pale, turning blue at his lips and the shadows under his eyes. His gaze was listless and drowsy but when he turned his head towards her out of the wind, recognition lit him up in spite of everything. It felt like hours since they’d left the copse of jack pines when it became obvious that the sudden storm wasn’t going to let up, but it might have only been minutes. They were already cold before they started out, looking for better shelter or a way back to the path they’d lost, but the wind and the snow had cut through their city clothes instantly mocking how unprepared they were. They didn’t even have gloves. Reid’s hands on her jacket pulled her closer as he tried to speak.

“Maybe we should go back,” he half-yelled against the wind. Back to the jack pines - at least they’d be out of the wind. “We can’t see anything. Don’t know where we’re going. It could get much worse and night is falling.”

She used a numb hand to fish her phone from her pocket and cast about for a signal, but it was the same as before: nothing. She swore as she shoved the useless thing away, letting her hand linger in her pocket for a moment in hopes that she’d start to feel it again.

“We can’t,” she said into his coat collar and then nudged her chin to the path behind them. It was visible for twenty feet and then it disappeared into the swirling greyness of the storm. “The wind has probably covered our tracks.”

He shivered violently against her and then stopped, which she found much more disturbing. Maybe his body was already starting to give in to hypothermia. He was so skinny, after all…

“Come on.” She pulled him as close as she could and then lurched them forward through the snow. “We’ll find something.”

He didn’t argue - which was another worrying sign - and just loped along leaning into her more and more. She felt herself sinking under his exhaustion, his icy hair slicing the side of her face with each step they took. _Don’t give up on me, man. I need you - we’re a team…_

She must have said it aloud because he huffed against her ear in response, “Never. Not this guy.” She smiled for an instant before the wind erased it with another icy blast. _Fuck Nature_ , she thought viciously.

It felt like hours as they staggered on but was probably only fifteen minutes. They could’ve been walking in circles for all they knew. She felt a stab of hopelessness lance her as she squinted into the same darkening nothingness around them and realized that the cold had seeped through her layers and was chilling her from the inside out now. The exhaustion was overwhelming; she just wanted to sink down and rest for a moment to catch their breath, but the rational part of her screamed that if she did that they’d both die. She hadn’t kept herself and him alive all of these years just to have them die a stupid death in the Rocky Mountains together.

“H-hey…” Reid’s voice was eaten by the wind but he tried again until the words came. “What’s that?”

She looked up and at first she couldn’t see anything. She wondered if he was hallucinating. Then the wind changed direction, lessening the sting of snow in her eyes, and she finally saw it: to their right was a darker grey shadow against the leaden sky. That was all she needed. She heaved them both towards it until it slowly, painfully solidified into real shapes with sharp angles.

“Oh, thank Christ,” she muttered, as the shadow became the form of a building. “Maybe someone’s home.”

They waded through the drifts until they reached the stairs, and then Reid leapt up them with a sudden surge of energy she envied. The cabin was dark and small, but appeared sturdy. There was a small covered porch with a cord of chopped wood stacked neatly against the front wall by the door out of the wind.

“It’s a Forestry Service post,” Reid said as he tried the door, which was locked. “They don’t use them in the off season.”

She blinked at the stacked wood in confusion and he followed her eyes. Then - God bless him - he smirked. “That’s for idiots like us. In case we get trapped during bad weather. There’s probably a stove inside. Maybe even a working radio to a ranger’s station.”

“But they locked the door. How thoughtful of them,” she snarked. “Come on. Let’s get our B&E on…”

It took both of them several tries before they managed to bust the door open, the cheap lock splintering away into the darkness with a satisfying thunk. Then they rushed in, Reid sinking to his knees with a strangled ‘Ow!’ as Emily slammed the door shut and then found something to brace it closed against the wind. They spent a full minute breathing heavily in the gloom and listening to the wind buffet the cabin instead of them. She thought it was the best sound she’d ever heard.

“We need to start a fire. Get our core body temperatures back up,” Reid wheezed. 

She turned, preparing to go back outside for wood while adrenaline was still her ally. “See if this place has electricity. Or a radio. I’ll be right back.”

When she returned, the interior was dimly lit and Reid was shivering on his knees in front of a pot-bellied stove with a blanket clutched around his shoulders. His soaked overcoat and sweater were in an abandoned heap to one side along with his gun and phone. He was shredding stuff that looked like Forestry Service paperwork to make a bed of kindling and she smiled hoping that the National Forest Service did as many unnecessary reports as the Bureau did. Reid looked at her as she braced the door again, his skin blue and freakish and the tips of his hair starting to thaw and drip all over him, but he smiled and she felt relieved despite everything.

“So, no electricity and no radio,” he listed, still shredding the paper and folders at his feet. “Also, no food, which sorta sucks. _But_ I found oil lanterns, lots of blankets, and a half bottle of whiskey older than both of us.”

“Well then, it’s a party, isn’t it?” she grinned and dropped the wood next to the stove. “Just as soon as I can feel my limbs again.”

She looked around the cabin taking in its meager amenities. It was a single room and dusty as hell. If anyone had used it in the past year she’d be surprised. It had bare wood floors, a desk, chair, and a filing cabinet that probably pre-dated the Nixon administration. There was a large Forestry Service map on one wall, a corkboard with yellowed notices pinned to it, a storage closet where Reid had probably found the blankets, and two high and tiny windows on the east and west walls with thick, clouded glass. There was no bed and no bathroom, and though there were electrical outlets and an ethernet junction along one wall, there was no computer or communications device. But even so it had four sturdy walls and a solid roof over them. She thought it was the best, damned place she could dream up in their situation.

Looking back at Reid on his knees, she saw him stacking a few logs inside the stove. He was shivering much more than before and she decided that was good, but then she was impressed that he’d taken it upon himself to make a fire. She didn’t think of him as an outdoorsman.

“Wouldn’t have taken you for a Boy Scout, Reid.”

His hands shook as he lit a match and coaxed the kindling at the center of his elaborate log construction to flame in the stove. Within moments the interior was orange with light and he fussed over it for another minute before shutting the stove door and adjusting the vents on its sides.

“Mom took me camping a lot to Lake Mead as a kid.”

She couldn’t picture that.

“Granted, most of the time it was because she thought the government was after us and that going off the grid was the best way to throw them off…” Reid shrugged and settled on the floor in front of the stove. “But it was still fun. She taught me a lot about flora and fauna, what kinds of natural things to eat, how to fish… stuff like that. She was always more relaxed when it was just the two of us.”

Now _that_ Emily could imagine. Reid looked up at her through his wet, bedraggled hair that was starting to stream down his neck to the blanket. He held a fresh one out to her. Sliding down onto the floor next to him, she received a blast of heat from the stove and nearly moaned in pleasure, feeling her numbness beginning to recede. Stripping off her parka, which was soaked through and not even slightly warm, she unfolded the blanket with clumsy fingers.

“Use it like a towel,” Reid murmured as he watched her, shaking intermittently. “We’ve got plenty. Might as well try to get dry first.”

She saw the pile of blankets on his far side and decided he was right. Now the danger wasn’t the cold so much as the lingering chill from the dampness of their clothes. Emily shrugged, used the blanket to scrub the ice and melting snow from her hair, and then stripped off her boots, socks, holster and sweater until she was down to the minimum of cover that decency would allow. Ideally they should’ve been naked and curled together using their combined body heat to bring both of their temperatures up… She shook the thought away and wondered where it had come from. Her cheeks started to prickle annoyingly and she told herself that it was just sensation returning to them.

“C’mere,” she said quickly before she could think about it. And then she launched at him with the blanket she’d used as a towel, scrubbing his hair and muffling his startled ‘Hey!’. “You’re soaked through.”

He sagged into the manhandling after a moment, spine slouching and leaning slightly into her hands while still shivering. Then she released him with a snap of fabric and eyed him critically as he blinked.

“Okay, now get out of those wet things.” Reid looked around for a convenient excuse not to but Emily wasn’t having any of that. How long had they known each other now? Modesty should have gone out the window years ago… “C’mon, Reid, don’t be a prude. You know I’m right. The dampness is just gonna make it harder for you to warm up.”

He rolled his eyes at her, the bluish smudges under them finally starting to turn back to their natural purple, and began to unlace his boots. He was working on his socks when she rose up on her knees and reached beneath his blanket to begin unbuttoning his shirt. She felt him breathe in and hold it while she worked but otherwise didn’t react. Part of her wondered if he was trying not to shiver and look weak, or whether her forwardness had shocked him. She made her way down the row of buttons and then looked at him. His eyes were firmly fixed on the toes he was flexing in front of the stove. She tugged the shirttails loose.

“Okay, shrug out of it,” she murmured and he met her eyes with a strange look. 

After a long moment he fumbled the blanket from his shoulders and then wiggled out of the shirt. He didn’t break eye contact, not even when he handed it to her. Something in her tightened a little because the look _felt_ brazen, and of all the adjectives she could ascribe to her friend, ‘brazen’ wasn’t on the list. His chest was alarmingly pale but pinkness was sinking back into his face and hands, and she had no doubt that soon his pallor would be less corpse-like and more off-white. That would be comforting and maybe she could finally banish the image from her mind of him dropping down into the snow face first never to rise again. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about it when they were out in the storm, but now…

She got up quickly telling herself to stop being an alarmist when they were _safe_ , and laid out their wet clothes along the stove’s surface with angry sizzles. Her cheeks were prickling again.

“You okay?” he said softly to her back.

“Yeah.” She scrubbed her damp hair away from her face and thought of something to distract herself. She fished in her coat pocket and pulled out her phone, testing its reception while waving it around like a talisman.

“The storm will probably still be interfering-” Reid started. 

Two bars lit up on the display. “YES!” she whooped and then opened her messaging app to fire off a quick text before she lost the signal again.

_Prentiss: Reid + I are still on the mtn. Storm closed in on us. Holding up in a Forestry Ser. cabin. Can u track our location + send help?_

She waited what seemed like forever, staring at the screen as their only lifeline to safety. All of this technology and their advanced training, and they could still be done in by a snow storm… Her phone beeped and she swore that it beeped _cheerfully_.

_Garcia: OH THANK GOD! Rossi & Lewis went after you when you didn’t come back but they just found the SUV. I’ve got your coordinates now but rescue services can’t take off until daylight at the earliest. Just stay put. R U GUYS OK?_

_Prentiss: We’re ok. We’ve got shelter + a fire going. No food or bathroom tho. Don’t make me have to piss in the snow, P._

_Garcia: Buck up, Buttercup. I’m all over this. Just cuddle up with the sweet Dr. and hang tight til morning. I’M LEAVING NO BABIES ON THE MOUNTAIN._

_Prentiss: Thx, P. See you soon ;)_

“Garcia?” Reid said hopefully as Emily turned back to him.

“Yeah,” she smiled. “They have our location now but can’t send anyone out to get us until morning. Nothin’ to do but wait, I guess.”

He smiled back at her, tired and relieved, and then draped open one side of the blanket surrounding him and nodded. “Okay. Time to get warm then.”

She almost hesitated and then she told herself to stop being stupid: they were cold and there was scientific legitimacy to the whole body heat thing. She knew that was all he was suggesting. She flopped down next to him and slotted into his shoulder as he wrapped the blanket around her too. She pulled another one across their front covering their legs and feet. They were shivering against each other but it wouldn’t be long before that stopped. Her cheeks were still prickling but now her hands and feet were as well. It was all a positive sign.

“So, camping, huh?” she said after a few weirdly cozy minutes of just shivering and huddling in front of the fire. “Your Mom doesn’t strike me as the outdoors sort.”

He chuckled and sent a warm huff across her neck in the process. “Mom’s full of surprises.” _Must be a family trait_ , she thought. “What about your Mom? Ever do anything like that with the Ambassador?”

“Nuh-uh. Mother would’ve been more of a ‘glamping’ type. If that had been a thing back in the 80s.”

Reid laughed again and suddenly Emily had a vision of her Mom in a designer camping outfit, complete with shoulder pads sharp enough to cut glass, aggressively negotiating with an army of bugs that threatened her sovereign borders. And then she was laughing too like the tomboy she’d once been with scraped knees and dirt under her fingernails and grass clippings in her tangled hair.

“Honestly, it’s amazing that I grew up knowing how to take care of myself at all. But I know all sorts of useless crap like how to respond to a formal dinner invitation and which cheeses are acceptable compliments to foie gras.”

“Well, it seems as though you figured it out. You’re the most capable person I know.” He wasn’t looking at her as he said it, just wiggling his toes under the blanket as he became mesmerized by the firelight. “And being able to take care of yourself at a young age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

It was an opening - sort of. But she knew him well enough to be wary of it. Since returning from London and taking over the unit, Emily realized that certain things about him had changed in her absence. He was less closed off, more confident, very much _a man_ now rather than the scrawny, scared boy she’d first befriended. But there were still no-go topics and anything to do with Vegas was one of them. She wanted to ask but one of the few things she feared was Spencer Reid’s temper.

She slid a hand down his bare arm under the blanket and when he looked at her, expression unreadable, the daredevil in her whispered _but it’s something to tempt the temper, isn’t it?_

“What else did your Mom teach you as a kid?”

His unreadable stare continued until the moment he decided something and reverted back into the shivering, exhausted version of himself. “Car maintenance. Our station wagon was a piece of junk but we couldn’t afford a new one. Mom said that just because things broke down didn’t mean they were worthless. People just decided they were when they refused to learn to cope with the situation.”

“Sounds like she was talking about more than cars.”

“Yeah,” Reid got quiet for a moment. “William had only been gone a short while when she said that.”

Emily shuffled closer and hoped that her damp t-shirt wasn’t adding to the chill he was trying to fight off.

“Anyway, she knew the basics like changing the oil, tires, and replacing plugs, but we needed to know more so she turned it into a research project.” He turned and gave her a shaking, slightly dazed look of achievement. It was him all over, but also frightening as hell while he was still sort of blue around the edges. “One time we took the whole thing apart - right down to the engine block and chassis - identified all of the parts and then rebuilt it.”

“Wow,” Emily’s eyebrows rose. “Like learning anatomy.”

“Exactly,” Reid grinned, still shivering. “The neighbors thought we were nuts, which of course, we sorta were… But the local kids started bringing their cars around when things went wrong. I guess dealing with me was cheaper than a mechanic. And some of them didn’t pay at all - they just threatened to beat the crap out of me instead.”

“Reid…” she gasped. He shrugged like it was nothing.

“It happened sometimes. There’s no sense in pretending it didn’t. Mom was a serene, vengeful goddess if she caught any of them doing it though. To this day there are probably some middle-aged Las Vegans who won’t drive down Ashbridge’s Lane for fear of meeting Diana Reid again.”

He sat up straighter as he said it, a fond smile slipping over him and then slipping away while he remembered. She knew it was _the remembering_ that bothered him, and so she pulled the blankets closer and decided to poke a little further.

“You didn’t take time to go to her after the casino incident,” she said. He shook his head, no. “Why not?”

“She didn’t get chosen for the Johns Hopkins clinical trial. I needed to stay and research other options. And then Hotch left. And the cases just keep coming…” He tensed under her hand, enough that she pulled it back so that they were just leaning against one another, nothing more.

“Spencer, the job can wait. Truly. She’s your Mom.”

“That’s what Rossi said. He told me that I was spending my time on the wrong thing.” Reid’s voice and features hardened as he stared into the fire, his shivering becoming an afterthought. “He said I ought to be with her while it mattered, while she was still her.”

Emily took a breath. “He’s not wrong, you know.”

He turned and glared at her. “He was telling me to give up.”

“He was telling you to be realistic,” she corrected gently. “Alzheimer’s is fatal. There’s no cure and even with a promising clinical trial they could be years away from an effective therapy. Your Mom may not have that luxury and she needs you more _now_ to help her with her memories than she needs you to be a scientist.”

Emily waited to see what he would do but he continued glaring without saying anything. A charged minute passed, and she thought if he were going to erupt he would have done so already. She sighed deeply and watched the flames dancing in the stove.

“She’s been through a lot, Spencer. Maybe expecting her to fight this as well as schizophrenia is too much to ask…”

“Maybe it is for you.” His voice was colder than the wind they’d fought to get here, and she turned back to face the full effect of the temper she dreaded. “You hate your mother. Giving up in a case like this would be a relief to you.”

She looked away quickly and swallowed down the feeling that he’d hit her. She’d gone too far. She _had_ tacitly suggested that he let his mother die. It was cruel, and she hated herself when she was cruel to him. Then she felt him shudder and breathe sharply beside her.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Emily. I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t mean it, really…”

“Of course you did.” She quietly forced her eyes back to him. He looked impossibly tired. “I said something hurtful and you hit back. I don’t blame you - it was a natural reaction. You were standing up for your family. You’re terrified because you think Diana is all you have left.”

 _In for a penny, in for a pound_ , she thought. Might as well give him more hard truth while she had his forced attention and he didn’t have enough energy to get truly enraged.

“For the record, I don’t hate Mom. We’re just very different people. She wasn’t there for me like your Mom was there for you growing up, mental illness notwithstanding. And maybe you’re right: maybe I wouldn’t fight for her if she and Diana’s situations were reversed. I don’t know. But one thing being my mother’s daughter has taught me is that blood isn’t the only kind of family.”

She let that settle for a moment as the wood crackled under the flames and the wind battered the roof overhead.

“There’s the family you’re born to, and you don’t get any say in that. But then there’s the family who chooses you, and Spencer, I think you forget that you were adopted by a whole bunch of people long ago. When your Mom goes, you won’t be alone in this world. There will be this motley assortment of folks who will feel your pain along with you and pick you up when you don’t think you can keep going. We’ll stick with you because you belong to us.”

Reid looked away turning so that she could only see a sliver of his face. His hand flashed to it from under the blanket, and then returned just as quickly.

“I just want you to have as much time with her as you can,” she whispered gently. “That’s all Dave and I meant. We weren’t telling you to give up. Go see her, Spencer. I know it’s hard.”

He was a block of granite beside her for a full minute. “I’ll… think about it,” he croaked when she thought he wouldn’t respond at all.

“That’s good enough for me.”

The fire continued to crackle and the cabin creaked with the force of the storm swirling outside. The arm of Emily’s sweater unrolled and made a fat sizzling sound as it slapped against the side of the stove. She just watched him as he watched the fire. There was more to say, but she’d have to settle for being heard and receiving a weak promise from him to change his mind.

“You said there was whiskey?”

He blinked and then looked around, fumbling with the blankets to produce the dusty bottle. “Yes. Look… 60 years old.” His voice was quiet and small, the way it got when he was second guessing everything he was saying. He opened the bottle and handed it to her without looking in her direction. “It turns out we are glamping after all. But no glasses…”

She smiled, relieved by his attempt at humor, and then reached for the bottle “You had my hopes up for a minute. But we’re still just two squatters drinking stolen booze while trying to keep warm. Glasses would’ve classed up our act a lot.”

She took a long sip and then hissed as it burned on its way down. But it was a good sort of the burn - the kind you got from working out sore muscles or sinking into a hot bath. God, she could use a hot bath… Taking a few more gulps she passed it back to Reid, who was watching her guardedly. He surprised her when she passed the bottle and he took a long pull of it as if it were soda. She watched him lean his head back slightly as his long throat bobbed. He didn’t even wince.

“You know,” he said eventually, shaking the hair from his eyes. “Alcohol has a paradoxical relationship with body temperature. It causes blood vessels to dilate, moving warm blood closer to the surface of the skin, making you feel warmer. But the same time, those veins pumping blood closer to the skin's surface cause you to lose core body heat.”

“I _did_ know that, Smartypants, but that’s only because I have a bit of a drinking problem.”

He shot her a sideways glance to gage her seriousness and she winked at him. One side of his mouth quirked up in response and he took another long slurp. “Guess I have to catch up.” _Atta boy_ , she thought. 

“You look like you’ve had some practice,” she murmured.

“Rossi’s taken me under his wing, so to speak. Hence the acquired taste for whiskey.”

“Yeah, I thought that was new…”

“He and I made a deal. I could tell him as many facts about whiskey as I wanted, but for each one I had to take a drink. It turns out that I know _a lot_ about fermented grain mash beverages.”

She huddled a little closer to him, smiling, and he made room for her without a fuss. He was already warmer - she could feel it radiating back on her. Sighing, she turned her gaze back to the fire. The struggle through the snow was starting to sink into her bones now; she felt as though her work was done. He was safe - she could stand down and let the fatigue take her. Her eyes drooped as the fire blurred before her and the whiskey snaked through her bloodstream, but they still passed the bottle back and forth as if it were medicine. There were things she wanted to tell him and this felt like a moment where she could take a breath and say them, but the exhaustion dragged at her like quicksand. There had been something inside since the day she’d told J.J. and him that she would replace Hotch and he’d turned to her proclaiming that she had no idea how much they’d missed her. His expression sparkled with thankfulness then and it made her sit up and pay attention. She realized that she was _thankful_ for his thankfulness. It really meant something to her, and she’d been searching for an opportunity ever since to repay the gratitude. Maybe ensuring that he didn’t die in a snowdrift was it, but it didn’t feel like enough somehow.

“Penny,” he mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“Do you _have_ one?”

He considered it, leaning into her a little more as he did so. “At home maybe. I have a jar of old coins.”

“Hmmm.” She wondered what alterations he’d made to his place while she was gone. He hadn’t invited her over since she’d returned. “I was thinking about how much we’ve changed, you and I…”

There was a long minute when the wind howled around the cabin and the wood crackled in the stove. She found that she was holding her breath for no reason at all, and then forced herself to start again when she felt foolish.

“Well, sure,” he said. “Everything changes. It would be weird if we didn’t.”

There was another minute with just the sound of the wind as they both seemed hypnotized by their shifting shadows dancing in the flickering light. His toes started twitching again.

“What changes did you mean specifically?” he asked.

“Well…” She felt a little uneasy and then decided _what the hell._ “We’re both a lot more tired than we used to be.”

“Agreed,” he answered ruefully.

“Hopefully that means that we’ve grown a bit wiser in the process.”

He chuckled. “Only time will tell.” 

“You’re more open now. Less secretive than you used to be,” she continued. “I hope I am as well. Secrets are blades that cut both ways.”

“Hmmm…”

“You give yourself more freely. I’ve watched you with J.J.’s kids - they adore you, and that just melts J.J., you know. I’ve also seen you give Luke the benefit of the doubt even though I know you miss Morgan more than you’re letting on.”

He shifted beside her trying to clutch the blanket closer. More giving, yes, but still not comfortable talking about it.

“And I also know that the way Hotch left cut clean through you. It doesn’t matter that his leaving was the thing that brought me back.” She felt this heaviness in her chest as she waited for him to react.

“We were…” He cleared his throat. “It’s like we were finally getting back to the way we were in the beginning. You know, he and I didn’t speak outside of work for a long time after Maeve died…”

She didn’t know that.

“Anyway, we were getting our friendship back on track and then… he just _leaves forever_ without saying goodbye? I thought I knew him.”

Fuck. Now she understood: it was Gideon’s exit all over again. She squeezed the hand draped along his side to get his attention.

“You _do_ know him, Spencer. Rossi made it sound all bloodless and planned out, but this team is Hotch’s family. There’s only one person he’d put before us.”

“Jack,” he mumbled, eyes wide.

“Yeah. I didn’t actually talk to him before he left but I’d bet my right arm that it killed him to let us go. _Killed_ him. And he isn’t a guy who takes friendship lightly either. Remember all that weight he lost when he hid me from you all while I hunted Doyle? He loathed every second of that lie. I’ll bet wherever he is now he’s not eating like he should and hating that he never got to say goodbye.”

Reid swallowed visibly as he watched her. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m pretty certain that I am. And maybe, someday, he’ll come back and prove it.”

Reid just sighed loudly and then shrugged out of the blankets so he could lean forward and add another log to the stove. He stoked it a little, aimlessly, lost in his head as she watched the fire paint his chest in shifting oranges, pinks, and indigos. He turned back, face shadowed, making an odd half-lit silhouette as he balanced on his knees before her.

“I’m still glad you’re home. Hotch’s absence doesn’t diminish that at all.”

Something elongated and popped into being inside her chest when he said it, like a soap bubble blown into the air. She didn’t get a chance to say something dumb or pointless. He just snuggled back under the blankets and pressed himself against her exactly as he had before.

“And I’m especially glad since today you saved my life. Again.” His face was serious when he should’ve been joking.

“C’mon, Reid. Don’t say it like that…”

“Why not? It’s true. I was in worse shape than you. You almost carried me here. I would’ve been a Reidsicle out in the wilderness right now if it weren’t for you. My self-preservation instincts are as lousy as always.”

She felt a rising surge of irritation at his assessment, but that was something she was familiar with so she went another way with it. “Well, that’s obvious nonsense,” she mumbled like it was nothing.

“Obvious nonsense?” She could almost hear his eyebrows rising.

“Yep,” she enunciated crisply and then fell silent. She wasn’t looking at him but she knew by the nature of the quiet in the cabin that she had his full attention. She dragged out the wait a moment longer and then turned, fixing him with an assessing stare.

“You know, I’ve worked with all kinds of people in my career with all kinds of skill levels. Cops, agents, soldiers, lawyers, even a couple of truly frightening politicians… I’d confidently place my life in many of their hands. But over the years I’ve asked myself: if I were in an impossible situation that I couldn’t get out of on my own - a no-win scenario - if I had to choose just one person who might be able to save my life, who would that person be? It’s a morbid question but I’ve thought about it often, and each time I ask it, the answer is always the same: I’d want Spencer Reid.”

The hair in his eyes couldn’t hide how big they suddenly seemed, and it did nothing to distract from his shocked expression. His mouth fell open, making a perfect ‘o’, and then he shut it quickly while his whole body did a glitchy reset on him.

“Why?” he breathed, just barely heard over the crackle of the stove. She was glad he’d asked.

“I guess you’re wondering why not Hotch or Morgan, or maybe some special ops guy? But none of them can do what you can do: you can make the impossible _real_.”

He started shaking his head, closing off his expression like he was avoiding a compliment. But this wasn’t empty praise…

“I’ve seen you do it again and again. You can walk into the worst moment of someone’s life, sometimes without back-up or protection or even a plan, and walk out again with everyone intact. You’ve been attacked, kidnapped, shot, beaten, infected, trapped, manipulated… and you’ve always found a way through, not just for yourself but for as many as you could save along the way too. Hell, Spence, once I saw you die and then come back to life, for chrissakes…”

His eyes flicked away from hers. She reached for his hand under the blanket and squeezed.

“And your tenacity isn’t just physical. There’s no one else - _no one_ \- who’d think around a problem like you. You wouldn’t stop, even if the answer were so far outside the box that it sunk below the horizon. You’d do the impossible, you’d try, and you’d probably stick the landing too. If my life were hanging in the balance I’d always choose you and your magic impossibility. And because we’re family…”

She paused as his eyes returned to her, quiet and wide and strangely hopeful.

“… I know you’d fight for me until the end. Families fight for one another.”

Finally, he nodded. She felt his hand tighten around one of her fingers.

“So, sure, today was _not good_ for a lot of reasons but if you had frozen out there it wouldn’t be because of some giant mistake you made. It would be because you’re tall and have zero body fat to keep you warm and were wearing clothes that were more stylish than practical. All of the same things could be said about me too. _But_ that was never going to happen because we’re a team and we belong to each other and neither one of us is a pushover when it comes to tough situations. Maybe you needed me today more than you’re comfortable with, but I needed you too, and in scenarios like this one I’d _choose_ to be stuck with you to give me the best chance at a happy outcome.”

He blinked at her incredulously. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“I know,” she sighed, and found that her pulse was thumping oddly in her ears. “That’s why I had to take a moment and tell you.”

He nodded again and she could see that he was having difficulty maintaining eye contact even in the gloom. But under the blanket she felt his thumb press over her hand and begin to rub light circles into her skin. Suddenly all of her pins and needles focused on that one spot even though both their hands were warm.

“Are you okay? Did that just freak you out?” 

She was trying to distract herself from the feel of his hand. She wanted to knit her fingers into his. She wanted to grip him like they had outside in the storm, but this time it wouldn’t be for survival reasons. And it was a crazy impulse that she wouldn’t do anything about because even though he’d changed and become more, and she found that newly compelling, she wasn’t going to throw herself at Spencer Reid. She wouldn’t embarrass him that way.

“Maybe, but I tend to freak out easily over this sort of thing,” he mumbled and his mouth curled into a smirk as he did it. “It’s hard to hear those things sometimes. It’s weird to see yourself through someone else’s eyes.”

“Hard? Why?” She got that it might feel uncomfortable, but hard?

“Because hearing such things can bring a lot of emotion with it. And responsibility. I’m responsible for how you see me. It’s a lot to live up to.”

She leaned in until she was just a few inches from his face. When he looked at her from beneath his hair, the firelight painted his angles and features with sharper lines. “You don’t have to live up to anything. This is how you’ve been the whole time when you were unaware of how I saw you. Why would knowing change that?”

His expression transformed into something that she could only label as ‘tender’. “Because it does, Em. It just does.”

She backed away a little because the way he shortened her name and the sudden effervescence in her chest was trying to push her in a direction she knew she shouldn’t go. And the 60-year-old whiskey wasn’t helping either. Time to get this train back on the rails…

But then he said, “You think my clothes are stylish?”

Her relief at the shift in conversation was palpable, and his look of incredulity was familiar. She leaned back and cackled too loudly, out of proportion to the moment, but it set him off laughing too. His body jostled into hers as he moved and she laid a hand along him to steady them both, feeling his muscles flex as he hiccupped out his laughter. Some things hadn’t changed: he still had a great laugh.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Pretty Boy.” 

She leaned in as she said it, and then couldn’t make herself back away when she saw his toothy smile and the genuine surprise on his face peeking out from under his half-dried hair. The thing that had popped in her chest earlier was now floating around uncontrollably, making her feel weird and untethered from reality. 

“Oh, it’s totally going to my head. Wait and see. When a beautiful woman tells a guy with perfect recall and historically poor sartorial taste that his clothes look good, it’s something he’ll remind her of at every opportunity.”

Had he meant to say that? It was impossible to tell, but they were both still grinning and neither one of them backed off.

“Beautiful, huh?” she murmured, wondering who exactly had control over her speech center in that instant.

“Well, uh… sure,” he shrugged, leaning away ever so slightly. “You know that’s not even close to being an exaggeration.” 

Emily wasn’t falsely modest; she’d been called beautiful more than once, but never by Reid. It was shocking how you could become inured to the phrase until it appeared unexpectedly.

“And I’ve said it before,” he continued.

He had? She had no memory of that.

“It’s not like you don’t know that about yourself.” He was speaking too quickly, as if trying to dig himself out before she noticed. “But today is _definitely_ the first time you’ve said you like my clothes.”

“Huh.” Her brain seemed to be whirring so loudly that she imagined he could probably hear it. And then when she wasn’t prepared, the bubble in her chest spiraled up her throat and burst in her mouth as she blurted, “So, are you gonna kiss me or what?”

His features went blank and his eyebrows almost launched off his brow. Inside she was scrambling around trying to figure out who was in charge and how she could get back in the driver’s seat. There had to be a way to reel those words back to her. It had just been an extreme day. Anyone would agree with that. She just had to-

His surprise suddenly became something else as he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

 _Oh._ Her mind went completely silent. 

The fire crackled and the wind groaned around the cabin walls and his lips pulled on hers gently as the kiss stretched out well beyond a joke or a dare. He moved a little and slotted against her in a new way, and then he added pressure, intent. She shifted to compliment it and their noses brushed. He backed away with a start, as if he’d forgotten where he was, and she gasped at the break. They stared at one another for an instant, and then, as if by silent mutual decision, they both reached for each other again. They met tentatively, but then he caught her lower lip and quietly sucked her in. She sighed and they both moved, slipping and reuniting in wonderment until they had no choice but to come up for air. His hand had found it’s way to her jaw and was cupping it almost too lightly to notice. He watched her with a stunned expression, and then it fell into something confused.

“It occurs to me that you might have been joking just now.” His eyes flicked from hers to the fire. “If so, this is awkward.”

“I wasn’t joking.” It came out breathless and surprised, which was exactly how she felt. “And look? The sky didn’t fall or anything.”

She smiled and as he met her gaze again, he gave her a shy one back. But his hand dropped from her cheek to settle on the blanket. Maybe humor was the wrong choice here…

“I liked it,” she blurted. “It was nice.”

And then he leaned backed and looked deflated. “Nice.”

“What? What’s wrong with ‘nice’?”

He sighed and turned to face the stove pulling his knees into his chest. “Did you know the original definition of ‘nice’ was _precise_? But the modern use of the word is generally considered to be _something appropriate or pleasantly inoffensive_. Like a relative’s cooking, or a shopkeeper’s manners.”

She made a couple of hard, disbelieving blinks and then said, “Are you kidding?”

“No.”

“Well, your kiss didn’t remind me of Aunt Gertie’s pot roast,” she said too sharply. “And it also didn’t feel like you were reciting a technical manual either. But it was just one kiss, Spencer. I don’t know how else to describe it.” Well, she did know but it all seemed a bit hysterical and ill advised to tell him about the weird bubbles in her chest. “I liked it. Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound convinced. This wasn’t playing out like she’d envisioned at all and it settled at the bottom of her stomach all sour and disappointed. She should stop now. They were both tired. They should get some rest…

“It was better than I imagined,” he said quietly to the fire.

 _Oh. Crap._ She felt like slapping herself in the forehead, but that impulse was being swamped by the bubbles that were now bursting everywhere, all over her. _This is such a bad idea. Don’t do it. Don’t pounce on this and ruin everything…_

“Well…uh… inexcusable misuse of complimentary language aside, if - hypothetically - I asked you to kiss me again, would you?”

He turned back slowly to face her, knees sliding out from under his elbows as he gave her an intimidating stare she’d never seen from him before. He slowly braced his weight on one arm and leaned forward, making the blanket slip from his shoulder and revealing his chest to her and the firelight.

“Hypothetically, if you asked, I’d show you _exactly_ how far off the mark your terminology was.”

 _Well, damn._ He was a few inches away - it would be so easy to reach out and close that distance. And she did reach out, but just to wrap the blanket over his shoulder again. Her fingers brushed his collarbone as they pinched the edges of the blanket together and his stare somehow became a pressurized, physical thing as she did it. He waited, completely focused on her, and she decided _that_ could be the start of something interesting.

“Okay,” she breathed through her mouth – it was an obvious tell. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She looked up and his stare was the same, but banked now. He wasn’t going to grab her and do something overblown, he wasn’t going to press the moment. Something was there now, floating between them unhurriedly, and it was just another sign of how much he’d changed that he was willing to wait it out.

“Okay,” he murmured, taking the pinched ends of the blanket from her and stroking the line of her index finger quickly in the process. Then he turned to face the fire once more, as if the whole thing had been a shared hallucination. She was having trouble keeping up and that’s when her fatigue reminded her of all they’d been through today.

She reached across his body until she grasped the whiskey bottle. His eyes followed her as she drew it close and took another drink – it was interest but also a little cautious. Emily figured that could sum up this entire experience, and then her tiredness made that thought seem more hilarious than it probably was. She laughed quietly and he raised an eyebrow at her.

“What’s funny?”

“I’m exhausted,” she sighed, and forced herself to look at him. “Actually if there’s a place past ‘exhaustion’ that’s where I’m at.”

“Drained?” he offered.

“Yeah.”

“Wearied, wasted, sapped, bushed, had it, kaput?”

“All of that,” she waved at the synonyms as if they were real. “Especially that last one.”

He smiled and his tender look returned as he took the bottle from her. “Then lie down, Em. Sleep.”

She looked around, hoping that she’d missed a comfortable piece of furniture somewhere. She was too old to sleep on wood floors. But Reid moved out of their blanket cocoon and began arranging the extra ones into a thin cover before the fire and then another into a small pillow.

“C’mon,” he waved her over when he was done and then tapped his finger onto the blanket-mattress when she just stared at him dumbly. “It won’t be comfy, but it’s just for tonight.”

She shuffled to it and lay down, trailing their shared blanket after her. 

“Put your back to the fire.” He picked up the ends and tucked them around her, and then he slid under too facing her, his head lying on the bare wood beyond the blanket.

“You can’t sleep that way. You’ll be sore in the morning,” she said quietly, watching him.

“It’ll be fine. I won’t sleep much – gotta keep the fire going anyway.”

“We can both do that – sleep in shifts…”

“Emily,” he sighed and reached for her hand. His grip was light and warm under the blanket. “Sleep now. I’ve got this.”

She blinked, trying to fight off the exhaustion, the warm drowsiness, and his assurance, but she soon gave up knowing that he’d be offended if she didn’t anyway.

“Just a few hours…” she mumbled and thought she heard him snort dismissively. His hand stayed wrapped around hers between them. She may have floated between waking and sleeping for some time, or just minutes, but when he spoke again he seemed very far away.

“Thanks for dragging me through the snow.”

“Thanks for Dudley Do-Righting the stove,” she muttered and buried her face in the blanket-pillow, squeezing his hand. “And thanks for the conversation. Missed talking to you when I was gone…”

If he responded, she didn’t remember it, and since the whole day had taken on the character of a strange dream, that seemed fitting.

\----

They both rose at first light, stiff and cold from the previous day and the dwindling fire. She’d been in his arms when she woke, tangled in the blankets and their messy, combined heat that she immediately missed when he let her go and she stepped away. He looked worse for wear and she imagined that she didn’t look much better, their hair stiff and knotted, their features wan, and singe marks on their clothes were the stove had burned them.

She ended up peeing in the snow after all, and when she returned grumbling about the wind and snow in her panties, he waved her phone at her.

“Garcia says they can’t send a chopper - the winds are still too strong. But they’re coming in a SnowCat. Should be here in the next few hours. She says she’s sending caramel macchiatos.”

Emily laughed as Reid shrugged. “I’ll build up the fire again if we’re going to be here a while.” He moved to the door to fetch more wood, and gently brushed her shoulder as he passed. It was purposeful, an opening play. _Game on._ The bubbles behind her ribs woke up immediately and went bananas.

“This is gonna be fun,” she murmured to herself with a grin once he was out of earshot.

The rescue team arrived three hours later. They said all the right things but both of them gave Reid and Emily matching condescending looks of those who were disappointed by stupid children. The SnowCat driver actually asked what the thermal rating of their parkas were. Smartass. But the cab of the SnowCat was warm, and there were fresh blankets and, surprisingly, Garcia had been completely serious about the macchiatos. Emily and Reid were tucked in the backseat under blankets and watched the scenery go by in silence as they made the three hour trek down the mountain. As the chattier member of the rescue team launched into the second hour of the more horrific rescue operations he’d conducted, Emily reached out under the blanket until she felt the outline of Reid’s little finger resting on his thigh. He tensed ever so slightly and then, as the Snow Cat lurched to one side and then back rolling over a drift, she managed to hook her pinkie with his. His tension subsided, and she imagined that she heard him sigh a little as he took in the view and continued to ignore the rescuer’s banter. Their fingers stayed linked until they made it to the ranger’s station and their waiting team.

\----

The knock sounded on her hotel room door just after she’d had her fourth scalding shower in three days. She still found herself shivering; it was like the cold had infected her bones or something. Scrubbing her hair with a towel, she walked to the door. Whoever it was had better be prepared for the sight of her in a mangy Alice In Chains concert tee and jogging pants. She opened the door and Reid was standing there in a full suit, vest, and tie at eleven in the evening. And, yes, it was a _stylish_ suit. He blinked quickly to cover that he was checking her out and then he smiled. _Cheeky._ She smiled back.

“What’s up?”

“I, uh, wanted to drop this off.” He handed her a completed Leave Request form. She skimmed it and then looked at him expectantly. “I’m going to Vegas,” he clarified.

She threw the form over her shoulder and heard it swish to the floor behind her. “Request approved.”

“You didn’t even… aren’t you supposed to check scheduling and lieu days and confirm banked vacation time with HR or something?”

Emily shrugged. “Whatever the dates, whatever time you need, we can work around it, Reid. I told you: the job can wait.”

“Okay,” he looked to his feet and rocked on them. “I’m not leaving ‘til this case is done though.”

“Whatever you want.” She leaned against the doorframe and watched him. “If we can help, Reid, just ask. We’ll drop everything. Your family wants to be there for you…”

“I-I… I know.” He looked up and shuffled closer to the door, mirroring her position against the frame. “It hasn’t come to that yet. She still has mostly good days.”

“That’s a relief to hear,” she said quietly. “But what I said isn’t a one-time offer. Just remember that.”

“I will,” he affirmed and then fell into staring at her as he slouched into the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. She felt her cheeks heat as his stare stretched out in silence. She didn’t think he’d come there to play their little back-and-forth but perhaps she was wrong. There had been small, unexpected salvos over the past few days in their down time, and she’d caught herself enjoying it just a little too much. Their sides brushing as they shared an elevator with local officers on the way to do a witness canvas, his hand on the small of her back as he pushed past her at the evidence board, her offering him a cup from a fresh pot of coffee but taking a big, sugary swig of it first while he watched… They had to be careful. 

Eventually her eyebrows rose. “Is there something else?”

“Yes, there is.” His voice was warm and immediate. It wasn’t his Dr. Reid voice; it was his firelight one.

She took a breath and held it, trying not to be obvious as her pulse starting pinging around like a demented cricket. She imagined that her blush was apparent now, and she felt ridiculously underdressed for whatever he was planning. It was embarrassing. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to explain, she arched an eyebrow at him. _And so?_ He slid against the doorframe until he was much closer than he ought to be with his boss.

“When I get back from Vegas, I’d like to come to you with another request.” He seemed slightly smug and determined not to elaborate without coaxing.

“ _Another_ request?” She tried to make it sound irritated, like a boss would, but it came out breathless instead.

“Yeah. This one is personal.” He stretched so that his mouth was inches from hers. She could feel his breath breeze past her neck when he spoke. But he stayed leaning against the frame, hands in pockets, as if he weren’t permitted to cross the threshold.

“How personal?” She slid closer too. Now, if they both strained, they could brush each other’s lips.

“ _Really_ personal,” he whispered. “Like, ‘go directly to HR jail, do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars’ personal.”

 _Jesus…_ Her eyes slipped closed and she followed the heat of him until she felt the crest of his lips against her own. She just skimmed them, feeling his breathing, all stuttered and choppy like her own. There was no way she was giving in first. _No way._ He had a lot more power than he knew, but now they had this game with invisible rules and she was determined to win. At least the first round anyway.

“Sounds bad,” she brushed against his lips. He might have made a sound like a tiny whimper and that sent her heartbeat into overdrive. “Maybe you oughta rethink it first…”

“Please kiss me, Em…” It came out strangled and urgent, like he’d lost the hold on his own plan. “ _Please_ …”

Bam. Advantage: Prentiss.

She leaned forward fractionally until they came together. Then his mouth was moving, skimming, tugging, all warm and soft and a little messy under the lash of his excitement. His sudden joy was contagious and she felt lightheaded, gasping and then losing it even further when he slipped in and wrung an unambiguous moan from her. _What? Hang on a second now…_ She gave up on subtlety and pushed into him, going deep, giving as good as she got, getting lost in the soft sound of their lips slipping together.

_Damn. Okay, maybe this was a draw…_

They popped apart, both flushed and breathing harshly, his hands still shoved into his pockets and hers gripping the doorframe until her nails turned white. And they were standing in a hotel hallway for anyone to see. They _had_ to get more disciplined at this. 

But he was right: that kiss hadn’t even been in the same zip code of ‘nice’.

“Sorry,” he choked out, still staring at her. “That was-”

“Fantastic,” she blurted. “And stop apologizing after every kiss. That’s a really weird reaction to have.”

“Okay,” he breathed and then went scarlet as an amazing grin spread over him. “Fantastic, huh?”

“Yeah. You got a problem with that word too?”

“Not at all. Fantastic is FAN-TAS-TIC.” He stood away from the frame and bounced up onto his toes and then back down again, still grinning like a maniac. She laughed softly and rolled her eyes: he hadn’t changed _that_ much. And he was definitely, absolutely going to be the downfall of her decorum - that was obvious now. But she suspected that it would be one hell of a ride.

“Alright, now that we’ve sorted that out, maybe it’s time to get some sleep?” She arched another eyebrow at him. _Go on now, off you go. Let’s try and keep some semblance of the rules here…_

“Yeah, okay,” he said smiling wistfully, and then after a moment, bent forward a little like he was bowing. “Goodnight, Emily.”

“Goodnight, Spencer. I will try to prepare myself for your next request.”

His face just stayed red but he nodded and smiled, hair flopping into his face and giving him a little cover. “Me too,” he said in his firelight voice and she silently cursed him for being better at this than she’d anticipated.

She watched him amble down the hallway and they locked herself in her room. She picked up his Leave Request and actually read it this time.

PROPOSED LEAVE DATES: March 3rd - March 19th 2017

Grabbing her phone, she opened her personal calendar and added the dates in. She didn’t think twice about adding his leave to her list of personal appointments. On the March 19th entry she typed _SR home_. It made the bubbles feel warm. And then she realized that she hadn’t shivered since stepping out of the shower. Maybe her long thawing process was finally done. Even so, she made a note to herself to get the gas lines to the fireplace in her condo checked. Her face flushed as she thought about it; that wasn’t _just_ about the unseasonably cold spring back in D.C.

“It couldn’t hurt,” she smiled and shrugged, putting her phone away. And then she spent far too much considering her next ‘firelight’ move.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Deejaymil for her ~~bribe~~ suggestion that I stop procrastinating about this fic when I only had two paragraphs left to write.
> 
> Okay, Deejay, you're up! My request is something with Reid and Prentiss and the prompt is: Emily gets jealous. Do whatever you want with that - they could be together, or not, Emily could be infatuated but Reid is oblivious, or you could AU the hell out of it and make them both Viking otters or something. It doesn't really matter - I trust you ;) And thanks for the offer.


End file.
